* Rant alert!!!
** Writer's block
*** Bad combination! What you still doing here?
I found a treasure recently - an old dairy, with yellowing pages and folded edges.
Yes. Yours truly was the kind who poured her sappy heart out into fresh, crisp sheets with narrow lines, of a dairy..... Lines that barely contained the tails of the 'g's and the heads of the 'T's.... just as it could barely contain the emotions that poured forth from the much chewed reynolds pen.
I read them again and again, with flashes of visuals coming in spurts and bits. I laughed at some of the pages, amazed at how much joy the little things in life gave. The flutter of a heartbeat when a glance lingered on a little more than it should. The sense of pride in hearing one's name being mentioned alongside obvious 'excellent' students in class. The hurt in finding that not everyone saw things in the same light as I did. Uninhibited emotions that could only be shared with the best of friends..... sometimes only a dairy could take on that role.
Remember the simple joy of writing? Not punching impersonal, cloned alphabets into the keyboard of a swanky laptop; but the sheer genius of creating words, sentences and stories through a pen. The joy of seeing one's personality flow out of the pen into beautiful, pristine sheets of paper.
When was the last time I had to change the refill of a pen? I don't remember - pens no longer ran out of ink before we lost them!
Remember how our growing up years were, to a great extent, focussed on perfecting this very art of transferring thoughts to paper. We put in years of practice - of holding the pen at that perfect angle, of keeping the thumb positioned at the best position to leverage the speed of the mischevious nib, the tilt of the index finger and the agility of the wrist. Years of parents of toddlers tightly holding their little fingers wrapped around pencils, coaxing, threatening, bribing those little minds to replicate letters, words and numbers.
Remember how we could determine who the owner of an essay was, by just looking at the writing? Or the hours spent thinking who the 'secret admirer' was - and then comparing all the handwritings in class to try and arrive at a blissful conclusion? Remember how parents proudly held aloft notebook covered in brown paper to show off the handiwork that lie within?
Years of aching wrists and fingers, not to mention the agony of lost or stolen pens, pencils, erasers and sharpeners; years of ink-smeared fingers, ink smudged shirt pockets, ink cartridges and refills - today, are all just a page in the story of each of us.
** Writer's block
*** Bad combination! What you still doing here?
I found a treasure recently - an old dairy, with yellowing pages and folded edges.
Yes. Yours truly was the kind who poured her sappy heart out into fresh, crisp sheets with narrow lines, of a dairy..... Lines that barely contained the tails of the 'g's and the heads of the 'T's.... just as it could barely contain the emotions that poured forth from the much chewed reynolds pen.
I read them again and again, with flashes of visuals coming in spurts and bits. I laughed at some of the pages, amazed at how much joy the little things in life gave. The flutter of a heartbeat when a glance lingered on a little more than it should. The sense of pride in hearing one's name being mentioned alongside obvious 'excellent' students in class. The hurt in finding that not everyone saw things in the same light as I did. Uninhibited emotions that could only be shared with the best of friends..... sometimes only a dairy could take on that role.
Remember the simple joy of writing? Not punching impersonal, cloned alphabets into the keyboard of a swanky laptop; but the sheer genius of creating words, sentences and stories through a pen. The joy of seeing one's personality flow out of the pen into beautiful, pristine sheets of paper.
When was the last time I had to change the refill of a pen? I don't remember - pens no longer ran out of ink before we lost them!
Remember how our growing up years were, to a great extent, focussed on perfecting this very art of transferring thoughts to paper. We put in years of practice - of holding the pen at that perfect angle, of keeping the thumb positioned at the best position to leverage the speed of the mischevious nib, the tilt of the index finger and the agility of the wrist. Years of parents of toddlers tightly holding their little fingers wrapped around pencils, coaxing, threatening, bribing those little minds to replicate letters, words and numbers.
Remember how we could determine who the owner of an essay was, by just looking at the writing? Or the hours spent thinking who the 'secret admirer' was - and then comparing all the handwritings in class to try and arrive at a blissful conclusion? Remember how parents proudly held aloft notebook covered in brown paper to show off the handiwork that lie within?
Years of aching wrists and fingers, not to mention the agony of lost or stolen pens, pencils, erasers and sharpeners; years of ink-smeared fingers, ink smudged shirt pockets, ink cartridges and refills - today, are all just a page in the story of each of us.
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| pic courtersy google images |
If there was ever a deja vu of 'Hitting the nail on the head' - this has to be it.
ReplyDeleteInfact I have grown so distant from penmanship that the last time I placed the tip of a pen on paper - it refused to move - I swear :P
hahaha!!! I know what you mean. I am just saddened by the fact that all our efforts are now redundant - all those years of being chided for 'handwriting' and now a waste ... :-(
DeleteAh.. I so miss the stain of ink on my fingers from the fountain pen, the delicious aroma of it (Ya, I'm an ink-sniffer. I still do it). The rustle of pencil on paper. I've always had terrible handwriting (I'm not exaggerating), but even then, I love putting pen/pencil to paper. So I make it a point to do it once in a while. I'm a diary/notebook-collector. So I scribble down something or the other in them every now and then. The handwriting is still bad, but the joy is inexplicable. :)
ReplyDeleteSame here!! I just got a Parker fountain pen, just to revive some memories you know :-)
DeleteA page in the story, so rightly said. Though I still try and write a little bit on paper but it never goes beyond 2 lines as it becomes unreadable owing to lack of practice.
ReplyDeletehahaha.... I can understand. I am in the same boat! Thanks Jas.
DeleteNever wrote journals. I'm hoping my blog is preserving my memories for my daughter :-)
ReplyDeleteand what lovely, hilarious memories at that!! :-)
DeleteThank you Purba!
I agree with Atrocious ! You have nailed it. I still have my diary (although I stopped writing a couple of years back) and once in a while I read and wonder how much has changed. I love writing in diaries so much that I dread to spoil it with my handwriting when I scribble away my stories! Still remember the joys of writing for a handwriting competition and winning it too :D
ReplyDeleteWow! You won a handwriting competition? You really must keep writing then ...
DeleteLovely nostalgic post! Good thing to have writer's block if you can write like this! :D
ReplyDeleteI also kept a diary and so enjoyed going through the entries many years later!
Hahaha!! Thank you so much Roshni.
DeleteThe last time I wrote with a pen was when I had to fill a form. And my dad snatched both the pen and the form saying that I was scribbling. And this is the same person who won 1st prize in Hand-writing in school. The irony..:-)
ReplyDeleteBut I'm sure and also afraid that this will one day become obsolete. The advent of smartphones, tablets and PC's have changed the way we record our thoughts into words.
Yes, I agree Kanthu. Technology has completely changed the way we record. But it is sad if we finally outgrow writing as a skill no?
DeleteI too wrote a diary once but I burnt it up. One fine day I realized that if I don't do so, I will end up killing everyone who reads it. :)
ReplyDeleteI loved writing using ink pens and then those designer fibre tip pens that were a rage in the 90s. :)
Hahaha!!! that pretty much is what most of us did in college :-) ... too scandalous to keep.
Delete